Hybrid work has become a defining feature of contemporary organizations, fundamentally changing how employees’ presence and contributions become visible. In hybrid teams, visibility is increasingly mediated through digital traces such as status indicators, responsiveness, camera use, and participation in online meetings. Yet little is known about how digitally mediated visibility shapes psychological safety and error management practices, and how leadership influences the interpretation of these visibility cues. Drawing on Communication Visibility Theory and sociomaterial perspectives, the study adopts a qualitative, inductive research design. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees and leaders working in hybrid settings in Germany and analyzed using the Gioia methodology. The findings show that digital visibility is not experienced as a neutral technological feature but as a socially shaped and strategically managed practice. Employees actively regulate their visibility to signal engagement and avoid negative interpretations, while simultaneously experiencing pressure to remain reachable and responsive. Psychological safety and error communication were found to depend strongly on communication channels: persistent written formats often increased caution, whereas synchronous interactions could facilitate openness. The interpretation of visibility cues also depended on relational familiarity. When team members knew each other well, digital signals were interpreted with greater confidence and less suspicion. Leadership further shaped these dynamics by influencing expectations around availability and transparency and framing whether visibility was experienced as coordination and trust or as monitoring and control. The study contributes to research on hybrid work by integrating digital visibility, psychological safety, error management and leadership.